The generation of synthetic infrared scenery is desirable for testing and calibrating of infrared devices. Night vision apparatus is a notable example of such devices finding significant military usage in current world events. Experience has shown that a large scale outdoor environment does not offer the repeatability or controllability of test conditions needed for the development of, or the testing and maintenance of, such equipment. For these reasons, since the early 1990's there has been significant progress in developing synthetic infrared scenery such as Dynamic Infrared Scene Projectors for use in Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulations capable of end-to-end testing and calibration of imaging IR devices.
Previously a number of different Dynamic Infrared Scene Projectors have been used. Among these are emissive devices such as thin films, bridges or suspended membrane resistors; transmissive devices such as liquid crystals and galvanic cells; reflective devices such as deformable mirrors, membrane cells and spatial light modulators; projector devices, as well as laser scanners of different types. At the current time, emissive projectors based on the advanced suspended membrane resistor arrays, together with the laser diode array projectors, appear to be leading the Dynamic Infrared Scene Projectors field. However, thermal resistor arrays suffer from long time constants, often involving response times greater than milliseconds and are limited in power dissipation capability. Narrow band laser diode arrays are limited to those applications where monochromatic projection and a non-Lambertian IR beam pattern (i.e., a luminous distribution that is non-uniform for all directions) are acceptable.
Additionally Dynamic Infrared Scene Projector approaches utilizing finite dimension pixel technology result in a relatively low fill-factor (F) value such as F<0.5 for small pixel areas. In contrast the present invention provides high-speed, high-resolution, broadband dynamic infrared scene generation with maximum fill factor values.